Journalist, lecturer and researcher

The journalist, the community reporter and the public

Last week I attended the third What Makes Good Journalism? conference at the University of Westminster in London. Speakers included Richard Sambrook (former head BBC World Service), Professor Tim Luckhurst (former editor The Scotsman), Deborah Davies (Channel 4 Dispatches) and Alastair Campbell.

It was a lively conference with a mixture of academics, students and journalists contributing to heated debates about the public interest, breaking the rules, citizen journalism and social media. Full multimedia coverage here.

I presented a paper in the Sources and Content panel based on findings from my PhD research at The University of Sheffield. Paper abstract is here. I spoke briefly about collaborative journalism and gatekeeping under Web 2.0 before outlining a pilot project in Leicester between the Leicester Mercury newspaper and a voluntary organisation called Citizens’ Eye. My findings were based on interviews with journalists, editorial managers, readers and citizen journalists.